OTAKU ALICE. "Alice, art from the rabbit hole" is on display at the Compound Gallery through March 31. Pictured is "Alice without her i-Pod" by Johnny Siu. (Photo courtesy of the Compound Gallery)

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #12 (March 18, 2008), page 15.

By Ronault L.S. Catalani

Alice startled to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity …" so go those simply pedestrian while mundanely magical misadventures of Lewis Carroll in Wonderland. Rabbits can dress formal and worry about time; foul-tempered royalty can use wincing flamingos for croquet mallets. It’s possible they do. It’s also possible, indeed it’s necessary, for art to do so, to get us there. Beyond the looking glass.

And that’s exactly where Matt Wagner, curator of Compound Gallery’s current exhibit, "Alice, art from the rabbit hole," wants to take us. Of course this show, a collection of contemporary Western and Eastern artistic takes on Alice’s extraordinary travels, is an invitation to go there — but more broadly speaking, it’s the mission of Mr. Wagner’s Chinatown shop to bring a particular kind of urban Asian creative flight to weird old Portland.

The genre on exhibit at Compound Gallery has many names. Some call it Japan-inspired animation art or anime. In Asian pop culture, people call it kawaii (cute, a.k.a. Hello Kitty). Among more devoted, predominantly but not exclusively post-modern young Japanese, the artistic subculture is advisedly referred to as otaku.

It’s those adorable but somehow menacing, possibly impulsively dangerous bunny rabbits, bionic boys, and pre-teen-like long-legged girls. They come silk-screened on the fronts of tight Ts, on pastel pencil boxes, in shockingly expensive little figurines, and in the super-sized, internationally acclaimed sculptures of Tokyo artist and social commentator Takashi Murakami.

Because otaku evades often elitist Western institutional categorization of high or low (brow) creative expression, the art and the artists included in the genre are at times not taken seriously enough. That’s why we keep entrepreneurs like Compound Gallery’s Matt Wagner around. It’s why he’s the kind of hip guy who sharpens Portland’s creative economy.

There’s so much to mine in "Alice, art from the rabbit hole." Featured artists include Orkibal, Aya Kakeda, Johnny Siu, Makiko Sugawa, Shiori Kawamoto, Naoshi, Juri Ueda, Yagi Tomoko, Mhak, Imaone, Kaz, Questa, Ogi, and Ina Takayuki. Anticipated Chinese artist Yan Wei, according Mr. Wagner, could not get official Beijing approval for packing and shipping soon enough to make the March show. Entirely consistent with the Alice in Wonderland theme.

Work that did make it to Compound Gallery’s walls, among many others, includes Naoshi’s bright, playful, and smart sunae sand paintings; Aya Kakeda’s bluesy silkscreen prints; Imaone’s pen and ink and watercolored bio-mechanical bunny; Yagi Tomoko’s digitally fantasized photography; Johnny Siu’s gouache of Alice distressed without her i-Pod. Opening evening crowds got stuck on Makiko Sugawa’s unsettling duo "Alice and Rabbit" and "Alice and Panty," both pen and ink and remarkable for the simplicity (only on first impression) and sexiness (even after Alice’s sobering, staggering amputation). In short, there’s a wide and wonderful variety of media and aesthetic.

It won’t take viewing all three dozen artists to realize that the dynamic and intentionally boundless genre of anime or otaku (or whatever you want to call it) will not stall long enough to get defined, sorted, and hung in institutionally appropriate niches. And it’s soon enough obvious that there are profound unifying elements and extraordinary creative forces at work in the otaku movement. Each artistic expression is playful, of course. But just behind, there’s toxicity, even catastrophe — all the more troubling for their cutesy façade.

Art historians may insist that this quickly covered, adorably dressed dread has its origins in Japan’s sudden atomic throttling and the nation’s unspeakable humiliation under Western occupation. But the same disquiet — judging by the big sales of kawaii and the universal appeal of otaku — has apparently infected the rest of our anxious urban world. Exactly as art is supposed to do: bind us by our common humanity, beauty and angst all the same.

"Alice" curator Matt Wagner says, "Each time we travel to Japan, we meet more of these exceptional artists, and are impressed by their innovative, fresh ideas."

So Compound Gallery, like Portland’s Asian immigrant communities, like Oregon’s Asian business investors, is bringing all that cultural, social, and other bankable capital here. Right here to our energetic neighborhood.

"And burning with curiosity, (Alice) ran across the field after it." And down she went after it. Down that rabbit hole.

"Alice, art from the rabbit hole" is on display through March 31 at the Compound Gallery, located at 107 N.W. Fifth Avenue in Portland. For more information, call (503) 796-2733 or visit <www.compoundgallery.com>. Compound’s Gallery website connects site visitors to 34 of their exhibiting artists’ websites.